Neighbors heartbroken over 2-month-old boy’s death

DAYTON — In what appears to be a tragic accident, a Dayton family is grieving the loss of a 2-month-old boy.

“To hear something like that is real said,” said D.J. Hopgood. He knew something was wrong Saturday morning after he looked out the window of his Bowen Street home.

“Looked outside and I see about two to three cruisers up the street, which is kind of odd for this neighborhood,” he said.

Police and medics rushed to a home in the 600 block of Bowen Street around 8:30 a.m.; the baby’s grandmother called 911 immediately after she found him unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at 8:37 a.m. by Dayton medics. His body was then taken to the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office, where his cause of death is pending.

“It’s a shame, it’s a big surprise,” said another neighbor, Todd Pedicord. As a father, he said it’s difficult to hear that news from just up the street.

“It’s terrible. I can’t Imagine what the parents are going through,” he said.

The baby’s mother told police when she returned home from work at midnight, Silas already was asleep on a love seat so she lay down on a couch to sleep. She checked him at 3 a.m., and he was fine. But when Silas’ grandmother got up to check on him at 8:30 a.m., she found him on his belly. She rolled him over, but he was cold to the touch, according to a Dayton police report.

The infant’s mother and grandmother said he had no illnesses or known health issues.

An investigator with the coroner’s office said an autopsy has not been performed, and that a preliminary cause of death was not available.

Instead, Jewett pleaded guilty to three counts — vehicular homicide, vehicular assault and failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer — in exchange for three counts being dismissed.

Jewett is scheduled to be sentenced March 20.

Heroin was found in both vehicles, one of which was stolen, according to police accounts. A handgun also was found in one vehicle. The crash happened at Ruth and Jerome avenues.

Around the same time in a separate incident, police attempted to stop a gray Chrysler for minor traffic violations and it sped away. Carper said the officer did not pursue the Chrysler, which was a rental car with New York license plates.

The two cars collided when the Chrysler, heading north on Ruth Avenue, T-boned the silver Toyota, which was traveling at a high rate of speed eastbound on Jerome Avenue, Carper said then.

California’s attorney general responded to Brock Turner’s appeal effort in a filing made public Monday, arguing the Ohio sex offender was not deprived of due process or victim to prosecutorial misconduct during his 2016 trial.

In the 95-page court brief reviewed by the Dayton Daily News, the state’s attorney said Turner’s “claims of error all lack merit” and “could not — separately or together — infringe” on the Oakwood High School graduate’s legal rights.

Turner’s new attorney, Eric Multhaup, filed a 172-page appeal in December seeking to clear his client of a conviction stemming from the January 2015 assault of a 22-year-old woman while Turner was a student and swimmer at Stanford University.

The appeal argued Turner was deprived of due process and alleged prosecutorial misconduct — in part by the use of the word “dumpster” in describing the location of the assault — as reasons he should receive a new trial. Multhaup did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

A jury found Turner guilty on three felony counts: assault with intent to commit rape of an intoxicated or unconscious person, penetration of an intoxicated person, and penetration of an unconscious person. Turner was sentenced by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky to six months in jail, but served three months of the sentence.

The case — and Turner’s sentence — sparked a nationwide controversy and wide-ranging discussions about sexual assaults on college campuses.

The state argues there was “substantial evidence from which a rational jury could find appellant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of all three charges.”

“That evidence included testimony by two independent eyewitnesses who saw appellant ‘thrusting’ on top of the victim half-naked and as she lay unresponsive on the ground,” the state’s brief said.

Turner’s attorney argued his client “was deprived of due process, a fair trial, and his right to present a defense” when the judge restricted testimony from four individuals with Dayton-area ties: Turner’s friend, an ex-girlfriend and two swim coaches.

Multhaup argued the court erroneously restricted the testimony of the four “to the trait of sexual non-aggression relevant to his conduct at the time of the offense … and excluded it as to appellant’s honesty and veracity.”

California’s response disputes Multhaup’s claim, arguing Turner’s “reputation for veracity among those who knew and liked him in high school was not the primary, or even a relevant, issue in the case.”

Multhaup also claimed prosecutors “malevolently” used the phrase “behind-the-dumpster” to describe the location of the incident because it implied Turner wanted to shield the incident from view and because “it implied moral depravity, callousness, and culpability on the appellant’s part…”

The state again disputed Multhaup’s claim, arguing Turner himself said the encounter occurred behind a dumpster.

An Oakwood native, Turner is serving a three-year probation. He now lives in Greene County and is a Tier III sex offender, according to Ohio’s sex offender registry. The designation means he is required to register with the county every 90 days.

He faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. He will also have to register as a sex offender for 25 years.

An Alford plea isn’t an admission of guilt, defense attorney Sam Shamansky said, but a plea that accepts its punishment.

O’Donnell had faced 14 child-sex related charges, including rape, gross sexual imposition and sexual battery. He entered the Alford plea to one count of gross sexual imposition and the rest of the charges were dismissed as part of a plea deal.

County Prosecutor David Fornshell said Hill also asked to borrow money while awaiting a settlement from a dog-bite case, “providing forged documentation indicating he was going to receive significant settlement proceeds.”

The neighbor loaned him $34,000, only to learn “there never was a dog-bite settlement” and was never repaid, Fornshell added in a text message.